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Automattic secures $29.5 million B round

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, just secured a $29.5 million B round of financing. Congrats to Matt, Toni, and everyone else at Automattic. $29.5 million is a monster round, considering that Automattic has so far grown by sipping daintily on a $1.2 million first round secured in 2006. I can’t wait to see what is next. Really interesting to me is that with this round the New York Times joins their investors. One word for that: adaptation. The line between old media and new media blurs further.

Hows does the investment work? Does it mean they have a share in WordPress? Do they get a part of the revenue or something? Do they get a share when you go to sell it or something? It doesn’t really make sense that someone hands over just under 30mil, unless they are getting a big fat portion or somehting?

nuggetbro, no one can buy a share in WordPress(.org), it’s a non-profit thing. Investors invested in Automattic, which is a company just like any company. Automattic runs WordPress.com, which is one of the many sites that offer a hosted version of WordPress using WordPress MU. Like George Foreman’s kids are all named George, all the children of WordPress are also named WordPress.

All that money is great and will finance some brilliant innovation, I’m sure. But I really hope this doesn’t lead to an acquisition by a big media company. That sort of consolidation inevitably ruins the free spirit and creativity of companies like WordPress.

Excellent. The influx of cash should help WP in areas that need it like standardized plugins, simple upgrade process and more solid admin area. Love the WP – and it’ll be nice to see things raise to that next level. Cheers!

Can you create, with all this new money, a REALLY easy way to upload a photo onto the blog site? Like, one easy press this button, bzong, there it is. this is not intuitive to me now ( geek-head minus a g-zillion)

The only worry I have is the amount of influence that the money men might have on future directions. Such a large amount of money would suggest they have a lot to lose, and will want to protect their investment.

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